If you just paid all those premiums to yourself over the years, you'd probably be way ahead - with the exception of catastrophic healthcare insurance.

It all depends on what you are insuring against and why you have the insurance.

House insurance. When I was 30, if my house burned down, I couldn't rebuild it. Now that I'm almost 50, I could but it would take most of my retirement savings and set back my retirement date a few years. Sure over the past 20 years that policy cost a nice sum, but still not enough to replace the house.

When used properly, insurance protects you against catastrophe. LTCI, I'm still kind of iffy on.

I wonder how many of those companies selling it are publicly traded companies that have to worry about share holders?

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